


VIII. Strength

by PostcardsfromTheoryland



Series: April Tarot Card Prompts [8]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: AU can't form Voltron without a Red Lion, Blade of Marmora Keith (Voltron)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-09
Updated: 2020-04-09
Packaged: 2021-03-02 02:48:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,662
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23557861
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PostcardsfromTheoryland/pseuds/PostcardsfromTheoryland
Summary: Strength: Joining of two opposing forces in harmony, persuasion, courageIn which Keith Kogane never grew up on earth, and Voltron can't find a Red Paladin...
Series: April Tarot Card Prompts [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1686346
Comments: 10
Kudos: 118





	VIII. Strength

Voltron was the most powerful weapon in the entire universe. 

Or at least, Voltron was _supposed_ to be the most powerful weapon in the entire universe. Lance wouldn’t know, since he’d never actually seen Voltron. But Allura and Coran claimed that with Voltron, they would be basically unstoppable.

As it was, with only four lions (three, really, since the Black Lion was still dormant in its hangar), they were less than impressive.

They’d been _so_ close, but the Red Lion had refused to awaken for either Shiro or Allura when they’d found it on Sendak’s ship, and Sendak had retreated before they’d figured out a way to get it to the Castle. Without Voltron’s combined strength, they just didn’t have enough firepower to fight back.

It was hard, and it didn’t take a genius like Pidge to know that they were losing this war. He could see the strain on Allura and Coran’s faces with each passing day, not to mention the strain on Shiro’s face. And yeah, the Lions they did have were amazing, and strong, and fantastic, but they just...weren’t good enough.

And to make matters worse, the Galra just kept on finding them, no matter how hard they tried to hide or how far Allura wormholed them away.

So it wasn’t really a surprise when, immediately upon exiting one wormhole, they were greeted with a giant fleet of Galra battle cruisers. It _was_ a surprise, and not a welcome one, to see a new, bright red ship among their ranks.

“No,” Allura breathed, “the Galra tricked the Red Lion! They found a pilot for it!”

And a damn good one, Lance was willing to admit. Whoever it was, they were weaving expertly through the Imperial fleet around them, shooting off a few laser blasts in their direction as if challenging them.

They were dead. They were very, _very_ dead.

“It was nice knowing you,” Lance said glumly as they left their hangars, three lions with, he was willing to admit, pretty inexperienced pilots against an entire Galra armada.

For a few minutes, though, the battle seemed to be evenly matched. Lance wondered if maybe they just got lucky today, or the Red Lion’s pilot’s skill couldn’t compensate for a three-against-one fight, until Pidge growled in frustration over the comms.

“Can’t they just finish it, already? This is humiliating!”

She was right, of course she was right, because she was _Pidge_. Every blast came inches away from them but never actually hit. The Red Lion and its pilot (Lance refused to think of them as a Paladin) were...toying with them. Lance was torn between admiring the skill and being just as annoyed as Pidge.

The rest of the fleet was still firing at them all, too, and apparently wasn’t as content as the Red Lion’s pilot to draw out their deaths.

“Shiro, try waking up the Black Lion,” Allura shouted as the Castle took another hit.

“Will that even work if some Galra is controlling the Red one?” Hunk asked. “I thought we needed all four, wasn’t that the whole point of making the Black Lion go dormant?”

“We’ve got to try,” Shiro yelled, racing down to his own hangar. “Just keep him occupied for a little bit longer.”

“Not really going to be a problem, Shiro,” Lance complained as another laser blast skimmed right in front of his face. “Fine, you want to be like that, tough guy? Take this!” He and Blue activated the ice beam at the Red Lion, and for half a second Lance thought he had him, but then the Red Lion shot a fucking flamethrower out of its mouth to counter the ice.

That was so not fair.

It seemed like the Red Lion was finally done toying with them, after that, lining up what looked like it was going to be a very debilitating shot at the Castle, when there was suddenly a giant black blur across the corner of his vision that hadn’t been there a second ago.

Somehow Shiro had managed to wake up the Black Lion, which was _great_ , and Lance had a moment to to gawk as they tore straight through the closest Galra cruiser before there was a weird tugging sensation, and a sort of mixed calm/excited/agitated/relief feeling? It reminded him of the exercises Coran was always having them do to reinforce the Paladin bond, and then things around them were...changing. Lots of movement, odd metallic clunks and scraping noises, the Blue Lion’s cockpit even seemed to change around him.

When everything finally stopped, Lance felt infinitely more connected with Shiro, Hunk, and Pidge, along with a strange, new presence brushing tentatively against his mind.

“You formed Voltron!” Coran screeched at them from the Castle. “You...you formed _Voltron_!”

“Wait, wait,” Hunk panicked, “if we just made Voltron with a Galra who is actually in charge?”

“I’m guessing that would be the Champion,” a new voice deadpanned. “You know, the guy in the _Black_ Lion? At the _head_?”

“You...planned for us to form Voltron?” Shiro asked in disbelief.

“Contrary to whatever you think about us, not all Galra are evil. Besides, do you really think I want to serve under the Empire as a halfbreed? They treated me like scum until I happened to be able to pilot the lion, and you seem to have a good thing going here.”

“I will _not_ have a quiznacking Galra piloting my father’s lion!” Allura hissed over the comms.

“Pretty sure you don’t really have a choice,” Pidge said. “Going by how well he was piloting the Red Lion, I think that decision was already made for you. I’m Pidge, by the way, and that’s Hunk, Lance, and Shiro” she introduced.

“Yorak,” their new...teammate? Paladin? answered.

“That’s nice and all,” Lance cut in, “but I’d _really_ like to see what this baby can do.”

“Vrepit sa, bastards,” Yorak snarled as he and Pidge activated their lasers in tandem, and Lance was man enough to accept that that had been objectively cool. He finally understood what Allura and Coran had been saying this whole time about Voltron’s power, because they’d just sliced several battlecruisers in half all at once.

“I can work with this,” Shiro said after a beat as they stared at the destruction. 

* * *

Despite the size of the fleet they were up against, it was by far the easiest battle they’d ever fought. It was barely ten minutes before they’d disbanded Voltron and flown their Lions into the hangars; over half the fleet had retreated and what the ships that had remained were reduced to shrapnel floating in space.

Allura had insisted on joining them as they made their way to the Red Lion’s hangar to greet the new arrival, and though Coran had claimed she wasn’t going to throw the Galra out of the airlock, Lance was still just a little bit concerned. Sure, he’d just met the guy, but then they’d formed a giant magical robot man, and like Pidge said, the Red Lion seemed to think he was ok.

Yorak seemed to stumble going down the ramp as he saw them approaching, wearing some sort of black full-body armor complete with a helmet and mask across his face. He was a lot shorter and thinner than Lance was expecting, honestly, given most of the Galra they’d encountered. But then again, he’d said he was a halfbreed (Lance was willing to bet that was an insulting term) so maybe whatever half he was mixed with was smaller?

“Galra,” Allura greeted, which Lance guessed was as cordial as she was going to get.

“I have to say, not how I expected today was going to go, but if you’re the Red Lion’s Paladin then I’m glad to have you on board,” Shiro said, grasping Yorak’s arm in a Galra handshake. “Don’t suppose you’d be willing to lower your mask so we can see you?”

“Before you say anything,” Yorak replied, hands hovering near his face, “I didn’t know you looked like me.” The mask across his face melted away, and...

“Woah,” Hunk breathed next to him.

He looked… _human_. Not purple and fuzzy like he’d been expecting; all pale skin and dark hair. There were a couple things, if Lance looked hard enough: his sclera seemed yellow, his ears seemed maybe slightly pointier than a human’s, and he had twin purple marks across his cheeks. But other than that, he could have been right at home at the Galaxy Garrison. Even Allura looked slightly taken aback.

“My father was...earthish?” he said in explanation.

“Human,” Pidge corrected for him.

“Hold on,” Hunk said, “the Galra already came to earth??”

“Well, sort of, but my mother was the only one who stayed there very long. She was protecting the Blue Lion against Imperial scouts.”

“Your mother fights against the Empire as well?” Allura asked, a calculating gleam in her eye.

“There’s…” he hesitated, glancing at Shiro for a few seconds before continuing, “there’s an entire group of rebel Galra. One of our members freed you from the arena, Shiro. And actually, uh, can I use your communications system? Because I sort of lost contact with them about four phoebs ago and they’re probably wondering where I am.”

“Someone’s in trouble,” Lance couldn’t help but snicker, and Yorak groaned in response.

“Kolivan is going to _murder_ me for this. It was just supposed to be a recon mission…”

“How do you mess up a recon mission that badly?” Lance asked, before Shiro cut him off with an elbow to his side.

“You can feel free to use our communication system, though I would like to join you to see if we could perhaps strike an alliance with this rebel group,” Allura said, still tense but at least less overtly hostile than she’d been before. “I apologize that I might need some time to, adjust to your presence, but. Welcome to Voltron, Red Paladin.”


End file.
